THE POET’S CORNER

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9081, 22 February 1908, Page 6

THE POET’S CORNER

THE JPOOR WIDOW. I knew a widow very- poor Who four small children had.; The eldest was six years old, A gentle, modest lad. And very hard the widow toiled To feed her children four. An honest pride the woman ifelt Though .she was very poor." To labour she would leave her home, For children must he fed-; And glad was she when she could A shilling's worth of bread. One day, when snow was falling fast. And pieroing*was the air, I thought that J would go, and see How those poor children were. Long ere I reached their .cheerless home ’Twas searched by every breeze. But on going an the eldest child I saw upon his iknees. I paused to listen to the boy— He never raised his head ; But-still went on and said Give ns this day our daily bread. And when he’d doneJE asked him why The Lord’s Prayer he had said? “Why, sir,’’ he said., “.this morn When mother went .away, She wept because she said she had No bread for us to-day; She said we children now must starve, Our father being dead.; Bat then, I told her not to cry, For I could get some bread. ‘Our Father,’ sir, the prayer begins, Which makes me think that He, As we have no kind father here, Would our kind father be. And then the prayer goes on to say, Give us our bread each day, So in that corner, sir, I went. And that’s what made me pray.” I quickly left that wretched home, And went with fleeting feet, And very soon was back again With bread enough to eat. “I thought God heard me,” said the boy; I answered with a nod, I could not speak, but much I thought Of that boy’s faith in God. Recited by the late David MewittOontribnted by Thomas Armstrong, Marton. (Author unknown. )